Donatello awakens in some sort of spiritual limbo where
he is greeted by Tang Shen.

In Harold’s lab, the Fugitoid arrives from Neutrino through the portal
only to see Don’s lifeless body. He runs
a scan and finds that Donnie is still clinging to life, but barely. He tells the other Turtles, Nobody and Alopex
to get Donnie’s body to the freezer/server room in order to slow down his
metabolism. He then tells Harold to
activate the portal and send him to Burnow Island so he can fetch some
equipment. Splinter, hearing that his
son is still alive, begins to meditate.

Splinter’s astral form arrives in limbo, which takes the
form of a massive hedge maze. He begins
to navigate the maze, determined to bring his son’s spirit back.

At Foot HQ, Karai, Bebop and Rocksteady survey the
damage, trying to find Hun (not sure if he’s dead or a deserter). Koya and Bludgeon then arrive with the news
about the battle at Burnow Island and that the Shredder is no more. Karai takes charge, saying that she’ll let
Kitsune determine whether her grandfather is truly dead or not. In the meantime, she intends to cull the
ranks of the Foot Clan of all outsiders and cowards, hoping to rebuild it even
stronger in the Shredder’s absence.

At a grocery store in New York, a trio of Purple Dragons
are shaking down the owner. Casey
arrives and beats the snot out of them, sending them away. The owner, Arune, thanks him and Casey gives
him a cricket bat in case they come back.
Arune then warns him that their leader, a big guy, was hanging around,
too. Casey realizes that must be Hun,
whom he spots storming into the Second Time Around shop.

In limbo, Donatello is confused as to where he is. Tang Shen asks her son where he wishes to go.

Back in the lab, the Fugitoid and Harold begin hooking
Donnie up to a bunch of weird medical equipment. After securing a helmet to Don’s head, the
Fugitoid then activates the machine.

Outside the freezer, Raph throws a fit, insisting that
they should have dealt with the Shredder first like Splinter wanted; if they had, Donnie would be OK. Michelangelo tells Raph to shut up; that by
focusing on Krang, they saved the world and Donnie would be happy with what
they accomplished. Raph storms out and
Alopex follows him, hoping to calm him down.
Leonardo says that Raph was right in that the Shredder needs to be dealt
with.

At Baxter Stockman’s apartment, the Shredder wakes up and
attacks his savior. Stockman keeps him
at bay with his Flyborgs and offers him a deal.
He’ll combine his genius with the Shredder’s wealth and resources, but
only as equal partners. The Shredder
agrees to consider the proposition, but on the condition that their first
project is to eradicate Splinter and his family.

In limbo, Tang Shen gives Donnie a ponderous speech about
light and dark, how the two balance each other out and which direction Donnie
wants to go in. She vanishes as Splinter
arrives and the rat guides his son back to Earth.

Donatello awakens in the lab, only to discover to his
horror that his mind is in the body of Metalhead.

*This issue was originally published with 5 variant
covers: Cover A by Santolouco, Cover B by Eastman and Pattison, Cover RI by
Zach Howard, Motor City Comiccon Exclusive by Simon Bisley, and Ottawa Comiccon
Exclusive by Adam Gorham and Paris Alleyne.

Review:

Been a crazy month.
Even news outlets picked up the story about Donatello’s “death”. I guess there wasn’t enough real news going
on in the world over the past 30 days.

Of course, if they were any measure of journalists, they’d
have read the Free Comic Book Day special that Diamond published half a year
ago which revealed, surprise surprise, Donnie ain’t dead. But I bitched about that enough last review.

Anyway, I hope you speculators sold those armfuls of TMNT
#44 you bought up, because it’s too late to jack up the price, now.

But, I mean, yeah.
Did anybody REALLY think Donnie was going to die? C’mon.
My irritation at the Free Comic Book Day leak was more a matter of
principle; IDW should do a better job of maintaining the integrity of its
storylines or at least be more judicious about what preview material they share
with Diamond half a year ahead of time.

So yeah, Donnie’s gonna be okay. He’s Metalhead now, but he’ll be okay. It’s an interesting turn of events, maybe a
little reminiscent of the Image TMNT Volume 3 series, where Don cheated death
by getting turned into a cyborg. Waltz
and the rest work it into the tapestry of the series nicely; I presume that’s
menta-wave helmet technology that put Don’s consciousness into the robot body. Like everything else in IDW’s TMNT series,
the pieces all fit together very snugly.

Tang Shen appearing to Don to give him a pep talk was a
nice callback to the Northampton arc and her powwow with Leo and Splinter. I guess this is what she does, now. It’s a bit repetitive, but it’s still
fascinating to see the Turtles with a mother figure still active in their lives
(even though she’s dead).

The speech she gives Donnie is a lot of ponderous
pseudo-philosophical babble. It’s a
two-page merry-go-round of a lecture about light and dark, seen and unseen, and
the balance between them. In the end, it’s
just a long way of asking whether he wants to live or die. Hmmm, such options.

Also, did Casey Jones just win a fight? In an IDW comic!? Saints be praised!

I’m being snarky, but you’ve probably noticed by now that
I’ve taken considerable umbrage with what a pathetic joke IDW Casey has become
over the past few years. From the
standpoint of the narrative, I can sort of see it. He’s been through physical turmoil (Shredder
stabbing him) and emotional trauma (Hun being his dad), so he hasn’t been on his
A-game for a while. But man, it’s been a
WHILE. He just keeps getting beaten up
and humiliated and he hasn’t come out on top since, like, 2012. It’s been no fun being a Casey fan.

Admittedly, he only manages to smash three nobodies this
issue, but baby steps. We’ll see how he
handles himself against Hun next month; if he continues to be IDW’s doormat or
if he finally starts acting like Casey Fucking Jones again.

Also, Foot stuff, but eh.
Just Shredder and Baxter teaming up and Karai possibly undermining her
grandfather’s authority. We’ll see how
that plays out. I’m more interested in
seeing Karai finally come into her own as a character than whatever Shredder’s
got in store.

Also, Santolouco is back.
I’ve started to see what people are talking about with his Turtles; they
are very “cutesy” looking. Compare to
how he drew them back in Secret History of the Foot Clan and they look like
they’ve actually gotten younger over the past few years. It doesn’t bother me as much as it seems to
bother a lot of other people, but I do think I’m starting like Cory Smith’s
Turtles over Santolouco’s, if only because they don’t look like they’re eleven
years-old.

That said, man, this guy can layout a page. Casey’s comeback rubbed off as such a big
deal to me because Santolouco made it look so dynamic and kinetic. I mean, it’s just Casey whooping three nobody
punks, but jeez did it look good.

Charles Paul Wilson III also shows up for the Tang Shen
pages. IDW always dusts him off for
sequences involving Feudal Japan or Tang Shen and he’s really become synonymous
with that corner of the IDW TMNT universe.
I dunno if he colors his pages himself or if Ronda Pattison does it, but
I love the softer touch with all the visible brush lines.

Anyhow, I didn’t see a title anywhere, but I think we’re
into the “Vengeance” arc. Unless IDW
changed the name of the storyline leading up to #50. It’s all building up pretty nicely and while
this was sort of the standard “breather” issue between big event arcs, it didn’t
come off as being any less tense thanks to all the suspense with Donnie.

Grade: B (as in, “But did Shredder’s hair get twice as
long between issues?”)

2 comments:

I believe Shredder kept his hair in a topknot or something. His hair is unbound in this issue, so it is its natural length.

Luckily, I had managed to avoid spoilers about Donatello's "death". Until a friend at work (who bought a copy of #44 before I got mine) came up to me and said "Can you believe they killed him?" "Killed who?" "Ninja Turtles?" Since Donnie was the only one that was in a really tight spot at the end of #43, that really narrowed it down.